


untouched & intact

by mishcollin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Fallen Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishcollin/pseuds/mishcollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castiel falls from heaven, he figures he has two options. He can find Dean Winchester, or he can get spectacularly drunk.</p><p>He opts for the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untouched & intact

**Author's Note:**

> yooo this is my first fic for supernatural so take it easy on me

After Castiel falls from heaven, he figures he has two options. He can find Dean Winchester, or he can get spectacularly drunk.

He opts for the latter.

Drinking would certainly be easier than talking to Dean, Castiel assumes, and seeing the look on his face when he discovers that Castiel’s fucked everything up not once, not twice, but a third time. When he finds out that Castiel is completely and utterly useless to him and Sam, when he realizes he doesn’t need Castiel anymore and leaves him to start a mortal life on his own.

This is how Castiel finds himself sprawled in an abandoned alleyway in Kansas City, Missouri, a half-gone bottle of whiskey discarded directly to his left and a distinctly unpleasant throbbing in his temples.

Once, Castiel thinks bitterly, I could drink a whole liquor store.

Castiel feels like he’s about to throw up, but he isn’t sure. He’s never felt the urge to throw up before.

He should be angry, righteous, maybe even relieved. But all he feels is a despondency that grits in his bones, that leaves him short of air and hiccuping for breath.

“Fuck you, Metatron,” Castiel says, relishing the taste of the swear word on his lips. “Fuck you, God.”

Once, he would’ve flinched, maybe even smitten people, at such blasphemy. But he’s human now, crawling on his belly in the dirt, and God doesn’t gave a damn about him anyway. Never did.

And why should he? Naomi had been right, after all. Since the beginning of his existence, Castiel had been wrong. Broken, malfunctioning, different. Too human for the angels, too angelic for humanity. 

Castiel is a broken thing, a shattered china vase, and the shards hurt everything they touch.

He thinks surely it’s a hallucination when he hears someone calling his name like a prayer. His head is swimming in whiskey, he’s lightheaded and sluggish, yet his name rings in his head with unsettling conviction.

“Cas!”

“Dean,” Castiel mutters reflexively under his breath, shifting his aching body for the first time in hours. He used to hear Dean’s prayers every day, his reverence and his faith and his compassion. He heard Dean even when he stopped praying. Sometimes when Castiel had felt his most desolate, he would fill the silence in his head with things Dean might say to him.

“Cas,” Dean’s voice says again, close and concerned, and he feels hands grip his biceps, shaking him. “Cas, talk to me, you dumb son of a bitch.”

“Dean,” Castiel says again, slurring the word, and he finds himself crushed into an embrace so tight it makes his borrowed—no, his own—bones scream in protest.

“Cas,” Dean says, pulling back, “goddammit, Cas, Sam and I thought you were dead. Are you hurt?”

“You’re referring to…my present state,” Castiel says, his words tangling over themselves.

Dean stares at him in dawning disbelief. “Are you drunk?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Dean shakes his head incredulously, and Castiel notices a soft mist dusts the air between them. It’s started raining. Spectacular.

“Cas, you should’ve called us. I—Sam and me—we were worried sick about you. What the fuck are you doing in Kansas City?”

“How’d you find me?” Castiel asks, ignoring his question.

“The GPS on the phone you never bother to pick up,” Dean replies, his voice gruff with irritation. “We’ve been calling you for a week straight, man.”

“Well, congratulations, Sherlock—” Dean slowly arches an eyebrow at this. “—you found me. Now you can leave me in peace.”

Dean’s brow furrows in genuine confusion. “I’m not leaving you. You’re coming home with me.”

Castiel laughs loudly, bitterly. “I don’t have a home, Dean, ‘case you didn’t notice.”

Dean is quiet for many moments. When he speaks, his voice is soft and sad. “You fell, didn’t you?”

“You say that like I had a choice,” Castiel mumbles, feeling misery doubled by the alcohol cripple him again. When he was an angel, he could at least mute the emotions that seemed to rip through him on a daily basis. He feels everything now, everything in its sickening and ferocious entirety.

Dean ducks his head and hisses through his teeth, “That son of a bitch.”

“‘was my fault,” Castiel says under his breath, feeling tears prickling unfamiliarly in the corners of his eyes. “I was stupid, gullible, and naïve as I always was. I deserve this. I deserve worse.”

“Cas,” Dean says, sounding heartbroken. “It’s not your fault that this fucker played you like a goddamn harpsichord. It’s not your fault, okay?”

“So stupid,” Castiel whispers, slumping sideways.

“Okay, come on, buddy.” Castiel feels strong hands under his armpits, hoisting him up and manhandling him into a standing position, and Dean grunts in his ear in surprise. “Whoa, heavy. You putting on pounds, Cas?”

“Shut up, Dean.”

“Alright, jeez. Cranky drunk.” Dean wraps a secure arm around Castiel’s shoulders, and Castiel slumps into the grip, seeking physical contact in a way he’d never needed or adhered to as an angel.

“‘m sorry,” Castiel whispers after they reach the Impala, parked just outside the alleyway. “‘m so sorry, Dean.”

“The hell are you sorry for?” Dean gently places a hand on the top of Castiel’s head and pushes it down so he can ungracefully collapse into the front seat.

“I—” Castiel begins, but Dean shuts the door and rounds the front of the car. Castiel watches the raindrops race in silver streaks down the window and hiccups morosely.

“What were you saying?” Dean asks as he gets in and starts the car.

“I was giving another futile apology.”

Dean frowns and tightens his hands on the steering wheel. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’re the one who got screwed over, who’s…human.”

“I’m sorry because I’m useless,” Castiel says, staring out the window at the dark blur of the passing world. “I can’t protect Sam like you asked me to. Or you. You should’ve left me in the alleyway, I’ll be nothing but a burden. Or a liability.” Castiel can feel himself tearing up again, and hates himself for it with grotesque fervor. “You said you needed me, and now I can’t do anything for you. So I’m sorry.” Castiel pushes his forehead against the window and sighs jaggedly.

He’s surprised to feel the Impala jerk sharply right before pulling to an abrupt stop; for a moment, there’s nothing but the quiet familiar gurgle of the engine and the heat of Dean’s gaze.

Castiel turns and blinks at Dean in confusion, feeling forgotten tears slip into the corner of his lips, salty tasting. “Why’d you stop?”

Dean’s glaring at him, saying nothing, and then he gets suddenly out of the car, the door groaning as he slams it behind him.

After a few embarrassing moments of struggling with the seatbelt, Castiel follows and looks at Dean over the top of the car, lost and perplexed.

Dean doesn’t say anything, just props his hands on the top of the car and looks down at the ground. The mist shrouded in the light above Dean’s head crests him like some sort of halo, and Castiel feels a stab of sudden affection and despair. Dean had always been, despite his rugged humanity, something divine.

“I hate you for this,” Dean mutters under his breath, so quietly that Castiel’s new human ears almost don’t catch it.

“For what in particular?”

“For making me talk to you about stuff. You know I hate this kind of crap.” Dean glances up at him for the first time and almost smiles. “I can’t take you seriously like this, Cas—”

“What, human?” Castiel snaps, bristling.

Dean pauses for effect with his eyebrows raised and continues slowly, “—drunk as a skunk and sopping wet. You look like a drowned kitten.”

Cas huffs, but he knows this is Dean’s attempt to lighten the atmosphere, so he lets it slide.

“Cas,” Dean says, his voice serious and almost pleading now. “I never said I needed you because I thought you were usable, like a fucking weapon. Do you really think that low of me?”

Castiel ponders this for a moment, struggling to understand. “I don’t understand,” he says.

“You wouldn’t, would you,” Dean says darkly. “Fucking angels. Dicks with wings, man, I’m telling you.”

Castiel remains silent.

“Sorry, touchy subject. I said I needed you because—” Dean waves his hands wildly, as through grappling for words. “—because…I need you.”

“That clarified nothing.”

“Ugh,” Dean groaned, thunking his head against the roof of the Impala. “Like, I need you around, with Sammy and me. Capiche?”

“No, I don’t capiche. Why would you need me around if not because I’m a useful guardian?”

“Because I like your company!” Dean basically yells. “Jesus H. Christ, is it that difficult to understand?”

Castiel thinks this over for a moment, letting Dean stew in what appears to be mortification. Dean likes his company? Castiel supposes this is what friends are for. He and Dean are friends.

“Listen, Cas, do you like being around me?” Dean asks, searchingly.

“It depends on the day of week,” Castiel says sourly.

“Smart-ass,” Dean replies, seeming a bit amazed. “I mean, even more than you were. Who would’ve thought that was possible.”

Castiel heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. “Generally, yes, I like being around you, Dean.” Castiel doesn’t confess that he’s happiest when he’s with the Winchesters, particularly with Dean, because it doesn’t feel appropriate to say. He doesn’t know how Dean would react, to any of the things Castiel feels about him.

“I can feel the love,” Dean says sarcastically. “But yeah, that’s what I mean. And you’d be sad if I died, right?”

Dean sounds surprisingly vulnerable when he says this, and Castiel looks up in genuine surprise. “Of course, Dean.”

“Okay.” Relief. Castiel is bewildered. “So you see what I’m saying, right? About needing you around.”

“Liking my company and hoping I don’t die,” Castiel says slowly. “That’s need in a human context.”

Dean whispers under his breath a high-pitched, “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

“It’s like talking to a five-year-old. An emotionally constipated five-year-old.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“I don’t appreciate that, Cas.”

“I’m just echoing what Sam complains frequently about your demeanor.”

“You and Sam have huge sleepover gossip sessions, huh?” Dean asks, sounding irritated. “Fine, Cas. Forget it.” He opens the door and slumps inside, leaving Castiel to stand there for a moment in confusion.

Castiel ducks his head in the open front door, taking in Dean’s dejected expression. “Are you saying need in a human context is like love, Dean?”

Dean splutters incoherently for a moment. “I never said love! When did I say love?”

“Just now, didn’t you? By what you described, needing someone is loving them.”

For once, Dean Winchester doesn’t have a thing to say.

Castiel rolls his eyes and stumbles into the Impala again. “You could’ve just said so, Dean.”

“I,” Dean says, sounding distinctly unmasculine for a moment.

“I need you, Dean. There; does that work?”

Dean’s jaw is unhinged, then snaps shut and clenches, his eyes very wide.

“Good,” Castiel grumbles, curling up and resting his cheek against the window ledge. “Wake me up when we stop for burgers.”


End file.
